Cause I Never Wanted
by varietyofwords
Summary: Oneshot set in the immediate aftermath of 4x17. "So,' Will draws out as he moves over towards the made-up couch, 'Erin figured out who Abby was and kicked you out, huh?"


A neatly folded quilt is pressed into his arms, and he tries to offer the blonde woman standing before a grateful smile. Tries to convey his appreciation for her letting him crash here, for her putting out freshly fluffed pillows and neatly ironed sheets on the couch despite the assumptions she's making about why he's here. Assumptions that cause her reminder about the bathroom being just down the hall to sound clipped and short thanks to the anger and solidarity she's failing to suppress.

And, yet, he still tries to convey his appreciation. Tries to repress the thoughts in his head – the dark ones, the kind that sneak up on him when he least expects it – long enough to make the corner of his lips pull upward and mumble words of thanks because he knows his brother probably sprung this on her. Knows he doesn't deserve Nine Shore making sure he has ironed sheets and enough blankets or offering him a sad smile as she reassures him that she's sure he and Erin will work it out.

"An apology does wonders," she offers with her characteristically bright smile. Any other night and he'd have to bite his tongue to keep from telling her to run. To stop pinning her hopes and dreams on a guy like his brother because women who smile as she does, who see the world as glass half full deserve more.

Tonight, though, his tongue sits loosely in his mouth and his hands remain empty of any proverbial stones he might cast. And yet his head still nods slightly even as he casts his gaze downward because he hopes she's right, hopes that the woman in his life believes in that, too.

"Thanks, Nina," his brother pipes up. The words, the interruption forces his gaze from the flowery pattern on the blanket in his hand to the other side of the room where his brother leans lazily against the door jam. Forces him to watch as Nina crosses the room, gratefully takes one of the three open beer bottles in Will's hands, and leaves the two of them alone in the living room.

"So," Will draws out as he moves over towards the made-up couch, "Erin figured out who Abby was and kicked you out, huh?"

The assumption is accompanied with an extended hand offering a bottle of beer, and he ends up staring at it for a moment. Watches a bead of perspiration roll down the bottle as another bead of perspiration rolls down his back, as he sweats the small stuff and the big stuff and the stuff he still doesn't know how to articulate.

"No," Jay finally forces out just as he forces himself to turn away from the bottle, as he concentrates on setting down the blanket in such a way that doesn't mess the sheets. His ears don't miss the sound of the bottle clinking as Will sets it down on the coffee table, and his peripheral vision doesn't miss the quizzical look on his brother's face as he sinks down into one of the empty armchairs.

Because he already gave his brother evasive answers when he called him up asking for a place to crash. When the tone of his voice, the cracks in his voice said it wasn't a request.

"So, you told her and she kicked you out," Will replies with a knowing nod of his head before tipping back his beer bottle and taking a long swig. But there must have been something about the look on Jay's face, about how the last two years have let the two of them repair their relationship that tips him off about his erroneous assumption.

The beer bottle falls from his lips, and the quick narrowing of his eyes is pushed aside with a small snort of disbelieving laughter. It's the quick one-two step kind of reaction only a cop with years of experiencing – or a brother who's been through years of bullshit from their sibling – would catch.

"You haven't told her and now you're hiding out here," Will announces with the shake of his head and a mouth that cracks into an almost joking kind of smile. "Take it from me, you've gotta go way further than twenty blocks north to hide out."

"Yeah," Jay trails off as he continues to fiddle with the corners of the quilt and their arrangement against the cushions of the couch. His voice sounds noncommittal, but there's a part of him that knows hiding out is exactly what he's doing.

Hiding out until he can sort out how to get a divorce – for real, this time – and put things behind him so he won't need sleep on the couch at his brother's apartment. Hiding out until he can figure out whatever it is so maybe Erin can help him handle it, so the only wall between them is the six pillows she sleeps with every night.

"I've still got a contact over at Doctors without Borders. They're always looking for security personnel," Will quips over the lip of his beer bottle as he tips it back for one more drink, as he continues on with a joke that his younger brother doesn't find funny. "Yemen. Myanmar. Sudan. Timbuktu. And with your experience…"

This time it is Will's voice who trails off, and Jay's face burns with the realization that his brother has caught on. The sudden rigidity of Jay's posture being echoed in the rigidity of Will's gaze, and he forces himself to stand up. To try to infuse some kind of relaxed appearance into his stance or his face or something. Yet his hand drifts upward to rub his fingertips against his hairline before he can stop himself, before he can force his arms to cross defensively across his chest as he meets his brother's gaze.

It is Will who breaks first, who looks down at the beer bottle in his lap and proceeds to pick at the wrapper as silence fills the apartment. As Jay begins to wonder if he should shun the ironed sheets and Nina's hospitality in favor of checking into a hotel or grabbing some Zzzs on the couch in the break room down at the District, instead.

"Hearing Abby's in town must have drudged up some memories," Will says in a low, even tone after a long, pregnant pause. His gaze remains fixated on the beer label as his fingers deftly peel it from the bottle.

Yet every so often his eyes dart up to look at his brother. To see that Jay's gaze has become fixated on the spot on Nina's rug where one of the brothers – Will claiming it was Jay, Jay blaming Will – had knocked over a bottle of beer the last time they sat on this couch together. To realize that two years of repairing their relationship through consultations on cases and nights watch the game hasn't fully repaired their past.

"Uh, I know," Will begins before pausing to clear his throat, to adjust his seat. "I know I wasn't there, uh, before, but, with Mouse gone, if you need someone to talk to…"

The rest of the Will's offer goes unspoken because they both know it's not the psychiatrist who Erin met with or the third-year resident with combat experience who Will works with that his older brother is offering up as people to take Mouse's role in all this. And they both know what Jay's answer is going to be long before he bends down to pick up the duffle bag he showed up on Will's doorstep with.

He repeats his words about not needing to talk before making his way towards the bathroom, and the lie rolls almost as easily off his tongue as it did this morning. The sole difference, of course, being that it hadn't felt like much of a lie then because there wasn't anything important to talk about. A twenty-four hour total joke of a marriage, a cliché outcome from a weekend in Vegas wasn't important because it meant nothing. Because it was from the time before – before he got his shit together, before he stopped being a guy he didn't even like – and because it wasn't part of his present or his future.

But now it is. Has been for eight years, apparently. And now he's back to being _that_ guy. The one who can't sleep at night cause the memories of what he saw and did won't leave him. The one who thinks he can take the easy way out, can ignore what he needs to face on. The one who takes things out on those who don't deserve it.

Which is why he's standing in his brother's apartment instead of being home with her. Because she shouldn't have to let _that_ guy – the one who got blackout drunk and so fucked up that he married some girl in a piss poor attempt to fix things – into her life. Because she doesn't deserve to be _that_ guy's mis–

He can't bring himself to finish that thought, that word. It turns his stomach just as rapidly as it did earlier tonight when he was pushing his way out of the bar past all the happy and unhappy couples. Had taken all his strength not to be sick on the concrete sidewalk outside when he realized what Abby's refusal to sign the papers really meant.

Because the look on her face when he told her, when she figured out that he hadn't planned on telling her had been hard enough to see. To know he caused that pain to appear on the face of the woman he loves. And that had been back when he genuinely thought it was nothing, when it wasn't something he had thought about in eight years because he wasn't _that_ guy anymore.

Except he is, and that's all he could see when he caught his reflection in the rearview mirror. All he could see reflected in the mirror hanging beside the table where he leaves his keys each time he walks in their apartment or in the mirror above the dresser in their bedroom as he pulled out his clothes. All he could see in her face as he tried to find the words that didn't have the finality of goodbye.

And, because it's all he could see, he purposefully avoids looking in the mirror as he ducks into the bathroom. As he drops his duffel bag at his feet and lets the door shutting behind him support him as his knees give out. As he sinks down backwards against the door until he's nearly sitting ass-down against the floor.

The angle of his body forces the phone out of his back pocket, though, and it hits the tile floor with a sickening clatter. And he can't bring himself to flip it over. To take the chance of seeing a missed called or a missed text from Abby blazoned across the picture of him and Erin that he's got set as his iPhone's lock screen. To take the chance of seeing what he thought was in his past touching his present or his future any more than it already has.

So the phone remains on the floor as he forces himself take some shaky breaths, as he forces the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes to go away for the second – or was it the third? – time that night. As he forces himself to recall all those sessions and meetings – the private ones with a PTSD specialist, the semi-anonymous ones with other veterans – Mouse dragged him off to nearly eight years ago told him to do. How he needed to focus on the things he can change and accept the things he cannot.

He cannot change who he used to be. He cannot change the fact that he still made a mistake one night in Vegas, that he chose to pretend it never happened rather than being upfront with her about it. He cannot change how _that_ guy managed to affect the life he's got now.

What he can change are the things he told her. He can change how much of _that_ guy she has to see by taking himself out of their home. He can change the fact that he never made sure the mistakes _that_ guy made were rectified by sorting out his marital status, by asking Will for the name of the law firm he hired a while back for his malpractice suit. He can change the fact that he doesn't know whatever it is that she wants to handle for him and with him.

At least, he hopes he can do that as he forces himself to rise back up to standing. As he pulls a t-shirt and sweatpants out of his duffel bag and works on changing out of his street clothes. Because he's not proud of the guy he was back then nor is he proud of the guy he is today, but he's trying to take steps to make sure he won't see either guy reflected back at him – in the mirror of the Sierra, in the TV of their living room, in the dark spots of her eyes – again.


End file.
